Talk:Experimental classical music

Intro
Intro para reads;

Experimental music, or avant-garde music, is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is.

Are avant garde music and experimental music necesarilly the same thing or can distinctions be made? quercus robur 17:06, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * It's hard to say, as they're both difficult (impossible?) to define - everybody has their own idea about what the terms mean, I think. I'll fiddle with the article so it doesn't suggest the two are necessarily the same thing. --Camembert


 * Definitely. Some may define some bands (like The Locust, which is American, by the way) as noise rock (I probably would), while others would just consider it punk. It has quite a few noise elements, but is heavily punk-influenced as well. A lot of Melt-Banana songs are referred to as Avant-Garde, Noise Rock, Noisecore, Punk, and on and on. I keep it as noise rock, as a subgenre of experimental music. Idolcrash

Major Issues with This Article
Now, this article is quite underdeveloped right now, but I think that's ok. developing it further would be a terrible idea because it is having an identity crisis which first needs to be resolved.

The problem with this article is it can't seem to be able to tell whether it's trying to be about the subgenre of late 20th century (and later) "classical" music that developed in a radical experimental avant garde direction (John Cage and his followers within the composing tradition, who often support the most experimental forms of "popular music" and may even sound similar, but still usually have limited ties with the pop world), or all music, whatever its tradition, that radically challenges conventions.

Early in the article there is a line saying "Experimental music" does not apply to such forms of experimentation within the tradition/culture of popular music, which I found very strange because 1. it is exactly the artists operating in the "classical" experimental music tradition who would be most likely, among all the artists of the academy, to affirm such a radical spirit as of equal experimental value in whatever tradition or "genre" it appears (at least I think/hope) and 2. the majority of artists currently listed in the article operate firmly within the pop music tradition, however marginal and independent. Some of them (i.e. Radiohead) are even well known and popular as rock bands, and certainly "rock" enough to be designated as "art rock" instead, or designated with other additional labels like "Electronic music" or something depending on the album. In fact I suspect each and every one of the experimental music bands listed here could be designated more specifically by some more specific "experimental" subgenre of pop or indie rock music.

This article's identity crisis is directly related to the identity crisis of the and the vague and disorganized Art rock article, and the dismal and seemingly pointless Avant rock (aka "Experimental rock"), which I have proposed for merging with either this article, or the art rock article, depending on what the people at this article want.

I did not really want to take out this article's repudiation of popular music experimental traditions as belonging only in "art rock," because that may well be a good idea for some of the bands-- although others are not exactly rock, but some other more marginal form of popular music such as industrial, no wave or noise, and would have to fit somewhere else.

I do feel an article focused only on experimental music in the "art music" (i.e. composed/"classical") tradition would be very well justified, especially as pop music listeners who listen to a wide variety of very challenging so-called popular music still tend to be unaware of the experimental music composed in the "art music" tradition, even when this more academy-based experimentation approaches the exact same ideals, sounds, and techniques as do their preferred radical artists and bands. Thus this article, if fit into that narrower topic and then properly expanded, would be informative and interesting for a wide range of people into alternative forms of popular music, as well as classical music.

It does bother me that "art rock" has "progressive rock" connotations however you try to define it, and the words "progressive rock" have by now turned into meaning the opposite of what it actually sounds like they would mean. "Art rock" has a very wide potential meaning, but I feel it would almost amount to original research for Wikipedia to include many truly experimental bands into it. On the other hand it is surely original research to claim Radiohead is "experimental music" in the same way as John Cage (or even, Nurse with Wound). They surely don't belong in this article, and are more of an "experimental rock" band. But, "experimental rock" and "avant rock" have never caught on as real names for an actual genre. They are excellent to categorize an album, say, but Wikipedia requires articles to be written about its genre categories.

To use the Radiohead example again, a rock album like OK Computer surely qualifies as "experimental rock" by any standard, but at the same time is extremely far from being "experimental music" as defined in this article, or even anything close to "avant pop" with its meta implications. "Experimental rock" is a bad term, because it's not used widely (except maybe on All Music Guide), so using it implies a value judgment. While as a Radiohead fan I may have read interviews and hear OK Computer as experimenting within its genre, a fan of Stone Temple Pilots may want to call the album where they experimented with psychedelia "experimental rock," and may even be right too. "Experimental rock" as a proper article would thus be doomed to being constantly watered down to include whatever form of experimentation everybody's favorite band had done, ending up little more than like the term "alternative rock" or "indie rock," except without any real historical basis in a particular scene like those terms, and without ever caught on enough as a trendy catchphrase outside a few music reviews to justify an article on it.

How do you write an article about Experimental rock that's separate from an article on Art rock? If you read the introduction to both articles, you see they're just two ways of saying the exact same thing, one ("experimental") seemingly more acceptable to a modern indie rock audience. There may be a legitimate way to define "avant rock or pop" apart from "experimental rock," as it has clear postmodern, meta, art world connotations. So David Bowie can be avant pop or something (among many more sound-specific genres). Perhaps if the "experimental rock/avant rock" article was renamed primarily "Avant pop" and focused on pop music of whatever style that espouses a consciously postmodern/avant garde attitude and is likely to appeal to theoreticians (whatever its musical qualities), while the "art rock" article remained for the broader category of rock music that is obviously experimental with its sound, style, construction, lyrics etc... I give up!


 * Does there really need to be such a distinction? The term "Experimental Music" has been used to describe innovative new forms of music in every style, not just western classical music. And categorizing non classical experimental music into "art rock" or something similar would just mislable a whole lot of artists. I do agree with you though - the article needs change. It's unfocused. Mabey instead what is needed is a very general indtorudction to experimental music in all forms, and then seperate pages for experimental trends in certain genres of music. 68.193.53.233 03:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

How about saying that experimental music is defined by it's method, rather than it's intent? I'm not an expert, but I've found that this personal definition seems to work quite well-- it covers the extraordinary range of "results" that experimental musicians have recorded and performed, allowing for practically anything-- but it also recognizes that the outcome is unknown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daephex (talk • contribs) 05:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Mink Coat Album
Has anyone heard of "The Mink Coat Album" or something like this? Apparently, it was an album of sheet music, which, instead of music, had inside of it instructions to go out and buy a mink coat. And the music that ran through one's head as they ran their hand along the inner lining of this coat (which, of course, has nothing to do with the mink fur) was the album. I Just heard about this bizarre thing and was wondering if anyone else had heard of it.

I do not know for certain, but that sounds strikingly like a Fluxus composition. If so it may be documented in the "Fluxus Catalog" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.215.155.173 (talk) 22:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice work
Page looks super good now, compared to before. Nice work. Zeno Izen 17:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Why does The Experimental Music Catalogue link remain when all others have been excised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.84.141.163 (talk) 03:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I would say that that link connects people to JEMS, which is free, online, peer-reviewed and without advertisements, which makes it, to me, an excellent experimental music resource. Other links have been removed for a variety of reasons, e.g. self-promotion. Doctormatt 06:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

edit 17. june 2007
added the definition by John Cage; changed indeterminate music into indeterminacy in music (to get closer to cage's and the commonly used term; added some further readings. Intuitive 18:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think your revision of the opening paragraph significantly improves the article's focus. However, I believe you forgot to include the title of the book by Smith Brindle that you added to the reading list (and his surname is compound: "Smith Brindle, Reginald", not "Brindle, Reginald Smith".--Jerome Kohl 20:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

What happened
User:YuriLandman renamed this article Experimental classical music and turned this article into what is now at Experimental music genres. I undid the change to this page, but in the process have lost the history of the article. I've asked Mr. Landman to discuss his intentions before making drastic changes again. If an administrator could repair any other damage done (e.g. replacing histories) that would be terrific. Doctormatt 18:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The article should be called Experimental music (classical) instead of just Experimental music. Rock is music, exp. rock is also exp. music. First the dictionary, then the musicologist terminology. I don't care how Cage called it in 1945, a lot new music was develloped experimentally after he used this term, not only in art music. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/Experimental_music&limit=500&from=0, which proves there is a lot of misunderstanding what is exp. music or what is exp. classical music. There should be two topics, 1 for people interested in experimental music and 1 for musicologists interested in exp. contemp. art music. YuriLandman 08:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Rubbish. Experimental music is either experimental, or it is not. The definition by John Cage quoted in this article should be sufficient.--Jerome Kohl 08:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the term experimental music applies to music that involves experiments in what music is, while, for instance, experimental rock music involves experiments in what rock music is. These are quite different things, and one is not a subcategory of the other. Yuri's point that many articles link here shows that many people use the adjective "experimental" in a casual, imprecise way.  People like the word experimental, and like to apply it to music they create or that they like to listen to: it's cool to be "experimental".  We need a better basis for articles here on Wikipedia.  I note that Experimental rock has no references whatsoever.  Perhaps improving that situation will make it clearer what the connection and differences are between that topic and this article's.  Doctormatt 19:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly what I was trying to say. If (as Cage defines the term) the outcome of an act ("composition", or any other act) is not foreseable, then it is impossible at the point of creation to know whether the result may by chance turn out to be a recognizable genre, and there should be only an infinitesimal chance of that occurring (like the infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters eventually producing the works of Shakespeare). "Experimental music", as defined in this article (and in Nyman's book), is exterior to genre entirely.--Jerome Kohl 20:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move
I stumbled onto two different pages that were nearly identical: experimental music and experimental classical music. Naturally, I got curious as to why there exists two different pages that have almost identical content. As far as I can tell, the original page was titled experimental music. In October 2007, User:YuriLandman arbitrarily and without any consensus or warning, moved the page to experimetal classical music. User:YuriLandman then created a new article on the former page entitled experimental music. User:Doctormatt moved that new article to Experimental music genres and apparently recreated experimental music by copying and pasting the old material back into the former page. This was not an appropriate solution to the matter as there are now two different pages on wikipedia with near identical content. Even though both users have been aware about these two pages, neither have since done anything about it. More work has since been done on the experimental music page as opposed to this. The appropriate remedy that should have been taken is to bring this matter to the attention of some administrator. After going through both articles and talk pages, I note that the only new contributions that have been made to experimental classical music since the move are also in the original page at experimental music. In other words, there is nothing on experimental classical music that is not also on experimental music while there is a lot of material that has since been added on experimental music that is not on experimental classical music. The same applies to this talk page. I have decided to copy over the material from experimental music to this experimental classical music in the expectation that this will make the propose move back easier. I emphasise again that nothing has been replaced when I made that copy and paste. I now humbly suggest that this page be deleted and the content move back to experimental music. It might be easier to just redirect or delete this page but that would eliminate the entire history of edits that were made to the article before the poorly conceived move. --Bardin (talk) 22:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC) I would like to further note that no other article page links to this experimetal classical music entry other than the content in Experimental music genres that the first user made and which the second user transferred to that page. --Bardin (talk) 22:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * No move is required; just make this page a redirect. If nobody disagrees, we can do that tomorrow. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. I considered doing a redirect but I thought there might be an issue with the history of edits remaining here. --Bardin (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If that were a problem, we could never merge and redirect. A notice on Talk:experimental music is more than enough. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)